Page 68 of Ghost in the Garden
“It takes all sorts to make a world,” Constance replied. “Which room did you use? Why did you not hear us blundering about in here on Thursday night when we found Gregg’s body? Or were you just hiding?”
“Thursday? I never heard anything. You don’t in there. It’s like a bloody great quilt around the walls.”
“Show us,” Solomon said.
Fear widened Iris’s eyes once more. “I can’t! He could come down any moment!”
“Not for another half-hour,” Constance said. “At the least, you’ve still time to make yourself beautiful for him.”
“I’ve come to end it,” Iris repeated. “Which’ll be hard enough without you two nosing about. What’d she send you after me for?”
“To find out if you were a ghost.”
Unexpectedly, Iris grinned. “He thought that were funny. Even when Mrs. Lambert saw me and she thought the same thing. Look, if I show you, will you go away and not tell Mrs. Lambert who I am?”
“We might leave it to Caleb to tell her that,” Constance said.
Iris hesitated only a moment more before turning and walking deeper into the cellar. Solomon held his candle higher to light the way. His skin prickled at the thought of Lambert’s thugs bursting out from behind all those closed doors.
Iris walked up the steps toward the main part of the house. A door stood closed at the top, and another to the right. She opened the one on the right—more smooth, well-oiled hinges—and walked in.
They followed her into a medium-sized chamber. The walls could indeed be described as quilted, like the padded cells of Bedlam, only more luxurious. Perhaps it had once been used for a similar purpose, to keep some poor soul safe and secure. Now it contained a framed bed, a luxurious carpet, and a wardrobe.
Just another love nest for another man who always wanted more than he had.
That was the trouble with striving, Solomon knew. One always wanted more. As he wanted more than Constance’s friendship. But this was entirelynotthe place to even think of such things.
Having swept the candle around the walls, ceiling, and floor, he brought it back to the bed and walked past the headboard. And that was when they all saw him.
A man’s head lay on the red-stained pillow, the covers drawn up to his chin. His eyes were open and staring, but he would never see anything again.
Iris let out a howl of pure fear that curdled the blood.
*
Caleb Lambert hadbeen murdered. Blood sang in Constance’s ears at the enormity. She and Solomon had got everything wrong somehow and a man had died. Another man had died while they danced after ghosts and spoke self-righteously about bringing him to justice.
Well, it was God’s justice he faced now.
The three people staring at him in terrible fascination, however, would be facing justice of a different sort if Lambert’s thugs found them here, bending over the body. Constance swung fiercely on Iris, and the weird noise she was making cut off like a tap.
“Don’t touch anything,” Solomon said—quite unnecessarily. “Back out the way we came.”
Constance forced her mind to work again. “I have to tell Angela.”
“We have to tell the police,” Solomon retorted.
“Yes, but Angela will send someone. They won’t go ifwetell them.”
“The police,” Iris squeaked with horror. “I’m not having anything to do with them! What would Frank say?”
“No one cares,” Solomon said brutally. “Go home, by all means, but the police may well want to speak to you.”
“Look on the bright side,” Constance said as flippancy reasserted itself. “You’re one of the three people in the world who couldn’t possibly have done it.” Who could have?
Giving up entirely on stealth, Iris flew across the cellar, out of the door, and down the garden path. By the time Constance and Solomon arrived at the kitchen, the garden door was already blowing open in the wind and there was no sign of Iris at all.
Goldie let them in, smirking. “Going to introduce us to your young man, Miss Silver?”
